6 NOVEMBER 1852, Page 2

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From Cornhill to Paris there is now instant communication by means of electric telegraph. What may perhaps be called the opening of the wires was characterized by a curious performance—the recognition of " the .Ernpire" by a company whose head-quarters is Cornhill, London. This took place on Monday, when a large company assembled to wit- ness the experiments. Among them were Lord De Manley, the Earl of Cadogan, Mr. Itfasterman M.P., Mr. Laing M.P., Count Flahault, M. Ernest Bunsen, Mr. Samuel Gurney, Sir J. W. Hogg, Mr. Airey the as- tronomer, and many other gentlemen known in commerce, diplomacy, and science. The most striking message, except the last, was sent to Paris at =ten minutes past two—" What time is it ? " Answer—"2.10 p. m." The last message was as follows—

"The Directors of the Submarine Telegraph Company beg leave to ap- proach:his Highness the Prince President with the expression of their best thanks for the assistance which ho has uniformly given towards the esta- blishment of this instantaneous means of communication between France and Great Britain. May this wonderful invention serve, under the Empire, to promote the peace and prosperity of the world ! "Dated Nov. 1, 1852, 30, Cornhill, London." At a meeting of the Court of Aldermen, on Tuesday, there was some conversation respecting the reports which have got abroad in the journals about the treatment of patients in Bethlehem Hospital. Mr. Alderman Copeland asked whether the Lord Mayor had received a copy of the re- port, or evidence, or whatever it might be, which had emanated from the Committee of inquiry ? The Lord Mayor replied, that he had not recei- ved a copy ; and he referred the matter to Sir Peter Laurie, who ex- plained.

Sir Peter said, that the authorities of Bethlehem had been prevented by the Secretary of State from sending copies to the Governors of the Hospital. The Committee had in the first instance, last February, directed the report to be printed for the use of its own members ; but they were restrained by the influence which the Commissioners in Lunacy brought to bear on Mr. Walpole; and it was not until April that the Secretary of State permitted them to continue the printing, on condition that the report "should be trans- mitted in the strictest confidence to the members of the Committee." Mr. Walpole did not authorize the Committee to send copies to the medical offi- cers until the 25th June, and these were only to be used for the purpose of preparing answers. Sir Peter could not enter into any particulars, as that would be anticipating the answer in preparation. But he must complain of the manner in which the Commissioners conducted the inquiry. They had not informed the Governors, or the witnesses, of the charges brought for- ward; nor, when the report had been prepared upon an "ex-parte i inquisi- tion," had any one been heard in defence. Changes had taken place n the staff of the Hospital ; a resident physician, apothecary, and matron, had been appointed : but these changes were made irrespectively of any com- plaint. He believed that in less than a fortnight "the charges would be met by a perfect refutation."

Alderman Sidney thought Sir Peter Laurie would commit no breach of honour if he were to contradict the worst charges. Sir Peter declined to contradict anything explicitly ; and contented him- self by saying " that the report of the Commissioners had been greatly co- loured."

Some other remarks were made, but nothing more was elicited ; and the subject dropped.

Two meetings have lately been held to consider Mr. Charles Pearson's scheme for making a City Central Railway Terminus communicating with the Railways North of the Thames, by means of four double underground lines ; and for constructing large markets, warehouses, and shops, on their margin. The first was held at the City Coffeehouse' on Friday last week; the second at the London Tavern, on Monday. Mr. Pearson announced that the directors of the Great Northern Railway had consi- dered and approved of the scheme, and had resolved to negotiate with a company if one were formed on a fair and liberal basis. In order to se- cure a fair beginning, Mr. Pearson undertakes " to advance all the cost of giving the requisite notices, and making the necessary preparations for Parliament, without looking for repayment should the company not pro- ceed." He proposed that the deposits of the capital subscribed should be paid into the Bank of England to the account of trustees (probably the three commercial representatives of the City) ' • and if three-fourths of the capital required is not subscribed by the 7th next, each share- holder should receive back his deposit without deduction. The practical result of the meeting was, that resolutions approving of the scheme, and agreeing to these conditions, were passed; and a committee was appoint- ed, including Sir James Duke, Mr. Raikes Currie, Mr. William Williams, and Mr. Sheriff Croll, to take steps to effect the required object.

The journals of the week, now confidently repeating the report that the plot of ground at Kensington has been bought with the surplus fund of the Great Exhibition, for the public, if Parliament will vote the money for buildings, give a slightly more explicit indication of the plan contemplated. It will comprise the national collection of paintings ; the trades' collection formed from the late Exhibition; exhibitions of art manufactures, such as that now at Marlborough House, in which the Schools of Art may have a central home' and accommodation for carrying out an extending system of industrial education, on some such plan as that pointed to in 1.

the report of the Royal Commissioners.

The sittings in Chancery commenced on Tuesday, at Westminster Hall. When the business of the day before the Lord Chancellor was finished, Mr. Malins, at the request of the bar, asked his Lordship whether he would permit the sittings of the two first terms of the year to be held at Lincoln's Inn. The Lord Chancellor replied, that he held it impoli- tic to separate the two branches of the profession. His habits led him to look with veneration on the Hall at Westminster ; the Lords Justices thought with him, that the sittings had better be held at Westminster ; and he believed that on this subject the bar was much divided. Here arose murmurs of dissent ; amid which Mr. Malin rose, and said that there were few questions on which the bar was so unanimous. Mr. Campbell, Mr. Roundell Palmer, and others, supported Mr. Malin ; and at length, apparently out of consideration for the convenience of solici- tors, the Lord Chancellor agreed to adjourn the sittings to Lincoln's Inn for the present term.

In the Bankruptcy Court, on Wednesday, Mr. Commissioner Fonblanque gave judgment in the case of Baker and Son, stock-brokers. The bankrupts had been intrusted by Mrs. Sutherland, now deceased, to sell out one class of shares and purchase another ; they used for their own purposes part of the money which they received by selling Mrs. Sutherland's shares, and were unable to purchase all the new shares to which she was entitled. This was evidently a breach of trust. The son had been the principal manager of the business : the Commissioner suspended his certificate for three years, and the father's for one year ; and only third-class certificates will be ultimately granted.

An application was made to the Court.of Queen's Bench sitting in banco on Wednesday, to admit to bail Baronet and Alain, who have confessed that they were seconds in the late duel, and who have been committed on the Coroner's warrant on a charge of murder. The Court refused the appli- cation : there was no doubt that the men had been engaged in the unlawful act of duelling, for they themselves had admitted it; and therefore there was no ground for interfering with their perfectly legal commitment by the Coroner on the capital charge of murder. In the Six-mile Bridge case, said Lord Campbell, that affair having been referred to, a verdict of wilful murder had been found against the soldiers, but, according to all the evidence, with- out any ground whatever ; and the parties, instead of admitting their guilt, strongly protested their innocence.

At the Middlesex Sessions, on Monday, Maurice Barnett, a lad of sixteen, pleaded guilty to robbing Mr. Henry Appleyard, his employer. Mr. Apple- yard is a news-agent ; he gave the prisoner a check to get cashed ; Barnett

was induced to appropriate some of the money at a " bett,ing-office," and was unlucky. He fled to Liverpool, and paid for a passage to New Orleans ; but after he had entered the ship, his conscience was so uneasy that he re- landed and gave himself into custody. Mr. Appleyard offered, if a lenient sentence were passed, to take the lad again into his service, believing he had yielded to a momentary temptation. Mr. Sergeant Adams passed a sentence of solitary confinement for ten days.

On Tuesday, Jones, the man who got money from a beer-shop-keeper on pretence that he was an exciseman, was convicted, and sentenced to prison for eight months.

Mary Steer; a young woman, is in custody on a charge of infanticide at Peckham. She had cut the infant in pieces to dispose of it. She alleges that it was not born alive : but a Coroner's Jury have come to a different conclusion, from the surgical evidence, and have given a verdict of " Wilful murder." This is a novelty in the recent history of infanticides.

Miss Anne Campbell, as she called herself, though her Christian name is Diana, was brought before the Marylebone Magistrate, on Monday, on a charge of stealing some valuablejewellery belonging to Mrs. Phillips, of Albert Street, Camden Town. Mrs. Phillips was not present ; but her nephew wanted the matter to be privately conducted, as an " arrangement " might be come to. The Magistrate refused the application. The prisoner is a Roman Catholic ; she some time since published a pamphlet impugning the conduct of Miss Scion, the chief of the " Sisters of Mercy.' Miss Campbell had been staying with Mrs. Phillips, and took the opportunity to carry off the jewellery. An officer arrested her at a villa near Maidenhead. She denied she had taken theproperty ; but in a trunk belonging to her the valuables were found. Then she said to the constable—" I saw Mrs. Phil- lips show these things one evening. I understood her to say she was going to sell them, and I thought her daughters had more right to them than she had. I did not intend keeping them myself. I was trying to get two of the young ladies into a convent, as their mother behaved so bad to them; and by presenting the jewels to the convent, the ladies would be well treated, if they presented anything of the value of 20/. ; others who gave nothing would be very differently dealt with." These young ladies who were to be got into a convent are Protestants, their mother being the widow of a Church- of-England clergyman. Some letters were found in the prisoner's possession, and given to the Magistrate, referring to convents, Miss Sollon's establish- ment, and other religious matters ; but their bearing on the case is not very clear. On being asked what she had to say in answer to the charge, the pri- soner replied, "I plead guilty to taking the Jewels, but not to stealing them. I never tried to get the young ladies into a convent ; on the contrary, I dis- suaded them from doing so, knowing of course that they were unfit unless they entered the Catholic religion. If they had done so, I should have been very happy to have seen them there." After carefully reviewing the whole of the evidence adduced, Mr. Broughton remarked, that the offence of en- deavouring to convert the daughters of a Protestant clergyman, and induce them to enter a convent, was an offence of a most serious description ; and he should remand the prisoner till Monday next. On being removed from the bar by the gaoler, Miss Campbell burst into tears, and exclaimed, "Oh, for God's sake, don't send me to prison ! I'm an officer's daughter, and a general's granddaughter." She was locked up.

The premises of Messrs. Whittaker and Co., the booksellers in Ave Maria Lane, were robbed on Sunday last. During the Sunday there is no person in the range of four houses constituting the establishment ; the porter or watchman being allowed to go home on the Saturday night, and taking the keys with him. This man, John Cooper, gave an alarm on Sunday evening, that the place had been robbed : he said he discovered an outer door open as he was passing to go to church. On inspection, it was seen that the robbers had broken open all desks and other places where money was likely to be de- posited ; a large amount in coin and small notes was carried off, and also the

contents of a plate-chest, valued at 200/. Saturday was " magazine-day,"and a large sum was received by the firm at too late an hour to pay it into

the bank : the surmise immediately arose that the thieves knew this. Cooper pointed out to the Police a window with weak fastenings where the robbers had probably entered : the fastenings certainly were weak, but there was no appearance of weakness on the outs:de to attract a burglar's notice. The up- shot of the inquiries by the firm and the officers was the arrest of Cooper.

He was brought before Alderman Carden, at the Guildhall Police Office, on Monday. Mr. Hood, a partner in the firm of Whittaker and Co. stated that Cooper bad been in their service fourteen years, and had hitherto been highly esteemed for honesty. In examining the premises, Mr. Hood made an important discovery. He found that, before any attempt was made upon the iron safe, his own private door had been forced open and the key of the safe taken from a concealed drawer, of which not more than two or three persons in the establishment could have been aware ; the key was replaced after the safe had been opened. From these facts he was induced to suspect some one in his employ. Two gentlemen named Hughes, who live next door to Whittaker's, stated that they saw Cooper leave the premises about eleven o'clock on Sunday morning. Cooper had stated to the Police that be had not been there between nine o'clock on Saturday night and six o'clock on Sunday evening. No trace of the property was found on the prisoner or at his lodgings. He was remanded.

At Lambeth Police Office, on Saturday, Jonathan Mould, chief clerk of the traffic department of the South-western Railway at the Waterloo terminus, was charged with embezzling 3091.48. 2d. Only sufficient evidence was given to warrant a remand. The amount embezzled consisted of a cheek which Mould had received from the Board of Green Cloth in liquidation of the "royal laundry account," for the carriage of linen, &c., to and from the Royal Palaces.

William Herbert Harrison, a grocer, who keeps the poet-office at Brixton, has been committed by the Bow Street Magistrate on a charge of stealing a letter containing a check for 16/. He got the check cashed, and two notes were traced to him.

A "plate glass insurance company" exists for insuring tradesmen against the heavy loss they would otherwise suffer when their large windows are ac- cidentally or wilfully broken. This company has complained to the Lord

Mayor that they have suffered considerably through some persons unknown, who discharge mr-guns at window: panes, apparently from the roofs of omni-

buses: three such cases occurred in Cheapside on Saturday evening. Bul- lets have not been found, but the neat round orifices in the glass denote that guns or pistols must have been used.

Anderson, formerly Clown at the Surrey Theatre and at Astley's, has killed himself, by jumping from a second-floor window in Greystoke Place, Fetter Lane, while suffering from a deranged mind : he met with an accident when a boy, and this has since affected his intellect at times.

Two men have perished in Compton Street, Goswell Road, and the lives of two others have been endangered, by a cesspool breaking into a trench which had been dug to form a sewer. The men who died fell senseless on going into the trench; the others narrowly escaped in attempting toiritecue their fellows—they were drawn out insensible, but in time to petWent suffocation. When the first victims could be got out they were dead. The "fire-annihilator" works in Battersea Fields were destroyed by fire on Sunday morning, with loss of life. The building, a detached one, be- longed to a company which manufactures Phillips's fire-annihilators; the composition employed was made there and baked in ovens, and then deposited in the machines. On Sundays, a watchman named Garrard had charge of the premises and fires, and his wife was in the habit of coming to him in the morning and cooking their dinner in the factory. About eleven o'clock last Sunday, her husband left her in the house while he went into a field to gather herbs ; when he returned a few minutes afterwards, he found the place in flames. He shouted to his wife, but obtained no answer. The peo- ple who were proceeding to a church in the neighbourhood did what they could to assist Garrard, and engines were quickly obtained from town ; but the fire burnt so fiercely that the premises were soon gutted, the chemical agents employed in the manufacture feeding the flames. As soon as the firemen could enter the building they searched for Mrs. Garrard's body.: it was found in a cupboard, with some portions consumed. The disaster is surmised to have onginated from an over-heated flue ; the poor woman had either been in the cupboard when the flames broke forth and overpowered her, or she had run there thinking it a refuge.

An inquest was held on Tuesday. The evidence was not decisive as to the cause of the fire, but the Jury coupled with their verdict of "Accidental death" an opinion that "the fire occurred from the ignition of wood in the oven or drying-room, by reason of a too near approximation thereof to the flues."